[Signing] Stars sign Jamie Benn

[Samonadreau]

I would put Benn in the top 5 players in the league right now. Closest thing to Gordie Howe in today's NHL and he's worth every penny

[Enoch Root]

Originally Posted by Jay Random

Yup, and overpaying for past performance is a great way to break a team.



During which the Hawks have had to make worse moves than ever before in order to stay cap compliant. Often in the past, they had to trade away supporting players to keep their core. Now they're at the point of giving away decent young assets in order to make those trades happen.

The Hawks won those Cups on the strength of stars on cheap contracts, plus Hossa, who was not cheap but had the kind of back-diving deal that is no longer allowed. It was a combination of skilful team-building, luck, timing, and gaming the system. Well, the system can no longer be gamed in that way, and the timing has gone sour since the team is now committed to spend over a quarter of the cap on two players. I doubt whether the elements of skill and luck will bring them another championship without the other two elements supporting them.

No one argued that.

The point was that Kane and Toews earned their oversized contracts with 3 cups. Benn has the oversized contract without any cups.

[FiveSeven]

Bollig > Benn then.

[GranteedEV]

Honestly when you look at NHL resume, Benn's pretty accomplished individually. Now whether that stacks up to the other three guys to sign similar deals recently:

Benn's resume as of signing contract:
Art Ross Trophy
1 3rd-place finish in Hart Voting
0.882 career PPG across 508 career games
255 points in last 245 games (last 3 regular seasons)
20 points in 19 career playoff games
First Team All-Star X2
Second Team All-Star

Kane's resume as of signing his:
Conn Smythe Trophy
Calder Trophy
0.957 career PPG across 515 career games
190 points in last 198 games (last 3 regular seasons)
91 points in 93 career playoff games
First Team All-Star
Playoff Points Leader
2 Stanley Cups

Toews' Resume as of signing his:
Conne Smythe Trophy
Selke Trophy
Second Place Finish in Selke Voting
Third Place Finish in Selke Voting
Fourth Place Finish in Selke Voting
0.909 career PPG across 484 games
173 points in last 182 games (last 3 regular seasons)
81 points in 94 playoff games
Second Team All-Star
2 Stanley Cups

Kopitar's resume as of signing his:
Byng Trophy
Selke Trophy
Second Place Finish in Selke Voting
Third Place Finish in Selke Voting
Fourth Place Finish in Selke Voting
0.895 career PPG across 764 games
208 points in last 242 games (last 3 regular seasons)
64 points in 75 playoff games
Playoff Points leader X2
Stanley Cup

Originally Posted by Enoch Root

The point was that Kane and Toews earned their oversized contracts with 3 cups. Benn has the oversized contract without any cups.

We both know Cups are a team accomplishment and even then require luck. Patrick Sharp was there for each and every single one of those cups and yet got cap dumped while still producing in a manner that would have made him our third best forward this year.

Besides, in terms of percentage of cap impact, this deal is still dwarfed by Iginla's deal way back when.

[Hugh Jahrmes]

Originally Posted by GranteedEV

Besides, in terms of percentage of cap impact, this deal is still dwarfed by Iginla's deal way back when.

Quoted for posterity and because I feel this is such an important piece of the equation that almost never gets the discussion it deserves.


It's not uncommon to see future cap increases taken into account when discussing the potential future flexibility/benefits a team may achieve when signing player X to $Y AAV long term, but it's extremely rare to see the same logic applied when lining up comparable contracts and trying to project numbers for a couple unnamed highly championed talents our GM is currently negotiating with.

Ended up forgetting to mention that in the other thread a bit ago, where someone had generated a number (somewhere in the low 6M range, IIRC) they felt was a fit for 13&23 by taking an average extension AAV of high profile forwards coming off of their ELCs in the last ?decade or so? and tweaked slightly using PPG as the only weighted variable (I think).

In 05/06, Iggys new 3 year contract represented almost 20% of the team's 39M total cap (7M / 39M = 17.95%), although his share "shrunk" to 13.92% (7M / 50.3M cap) in the final year. With a 73M cap, those numbers look horrendously bloated at 13.1M (!) and 10.16M respectively. I realize that the guy I chose to use as a measuring stick is a bit of a big deal for this franchise, but he was our highest paid guy at the time as well as top producer - two things I'm sure Johnny plans to have locked up for quite a while.

In 06/07, Tanguay represented 11.3% of the cap, which would see a comparable playmaking winger today earn about 8.3M vs the current cap. Definitely gives a bit of a different perspective when you look at the math versus just acknowledging the fact that so-and-so earned a bit less, but the cap was lower, and throwing numbers out there.

Sorry to get off topic/derail, probably belongs in the tin foil hat signing thread.



Benn has some big shoes to fill now, but I'd have to imagine the Stars being happy with those numbers for the next handful of years. Amazing player all around.

[CroFlames]

Great deal for an elite player and leader. He gets bonus points in my book for being a fearless visorless player.

[Flames Draft Watcher]

Best powerforward in the game. He's worth that money.

[burnitdown]

Originally Posted by CroFlames

Great deal for an elite player and leader. He gets bonus points in my book for being a fearless visorless player.

Why bonus points? The higher injury risk??

[CroFlames]

Originally Posted by burnitdown

Why bonus points? The higher injury risk??

You wouldn't understand.

[burnitdown]

Originally Posted by CroFlames

You wouldn't understand.

No worries, I wasn't expecting you to be able to explain how it was a good thing anyway!